A Friday Five (#20) Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell

I haven't done one of these since the baby!  Well actually from before the baby, but man that last trimester kicked my butt.

Friday's I'll feature one of my favorite books or a book I read in the last week and come up 5 words to describe it.  View it as a super mini review.  This week I'm featuring:

*Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell

I was really looking forward to this book and had made it one of my WoW books.  I am absolutely fascinated by serial killers and I am always watching Discovery ID.  I figured this book would be perfect for me.  Here are the five words I have for my reading experience:

1. Disjointed
2. Unrealistic
3. Flat
4. Contradictory
5. Disappointing

Disjointed:  I'm using this word to describe the writing. There was just no flow to the writing, it was filled with basic sentences, and read in almost a jerky manner.  This may have been a purposeful style, but it really bothered me.

Unrealistic:  I completely accept the need for suspension of disbelief often need when reading, but this is just beyond.  I found nothing in this book to be plausible.  Which then begs the question, is this supposed to be a contemporary, or a fantasy?  If this is supposed to be a fantasy book, then maybe it would better?  Probably not.  An example of this is a **SPOILER**, at one point the police find some DNA and try to trick Kat, the main character, to get her DNA as a comparison.  She subs out a MALE classmates DNA, when they try to get hers. NOBODY questions this. Yeah.

Flat:  The whole book fell flat for me, but really it was the characters that fell the most flat.  I'm still not sure what we are supposed to feel for Kat.  Disgust?  Are we rooting for her?  What about her mother?  Her father? The police detective she befriends?  I was left with no feeling for any of them.

Contradictory:  This was probably one of the things that bothered me the most about this book. The whole book is based on moral nihilism, nothing is wrong and nothing is right.  Yet, Kat contradicts this ALL THE TIME.  Some are acknowledged in the book, but others are completely skipped over. 

Disappointing:  My general feeling after I finished it. I wasn't angry about wasting my time reading it, but I was disappointed, because I was really hoping it would be as awesome as it looked.  Instead I found it to be pretty wretched. 

*An ARC was provided to me by HarperCollins.